7 Reasons Old Love Is Better Than New Love

I’m in the midst of new love right now. People are coming out of every corner telling me to enjoy it because there’s nothing like it. I appreciate their sentiments, but honestly, I beg to differ.

While new love is fresh, exciting, and incredibly addictive because of how alive it makes you feel, it also brings up all your shit. It makes you anxious, and you spend a lot of time making sure you look and smell nice. Old love is better, and this is why:

1. You feel settled.

Old love feels like a perfectly broken-in pair of jeans. There’s no need to try to impress a new partner or squeeze into your best self at every second. You’ve realized by now there are going to be exciting nights out and relaxed nights in when you fall asleep watching Netflix in a pizza-stained T-shirt while the kids are sleeping.

You don’t worry if you snore, how much you ate, or what you look like. You are comfortable in the knowledge you are with the one person who loves it when you let it all hang out because it means you accept this part of them too.

2. You know what to expect.

If they are flaky about remembering an important date or they struggle in crowds and don’t mesh well at family gatherings or parties, you don’t take it personally. The pressure is off to always be on your best behavior like you are when you’re in the honeymoon phase of a relationship and you want to impress your partner.

Things are more relaxed, and you have no problem saying “Honey, I love you, but I’m only good for a few hours of hanging with your family before I turn into a pumpkin.” So, if they retreat to another room, or make an excuse to leave and you want to stay longer, this situation isn’t taken as a personal affront like it might be when you’re first together.

Getting to this stage feels glorious. When you were first falling in love and noticing certain personality traits, it’s hard not to use things they do as a way to measure how they feel about you. Let’s face it, this is exhausting as fuck, but we all do it to some degree.

3. They know how to piss you off, and you know how to get them back.

Just like getting to know what they like, how fast they’ll eat their share of dessert when you get two spoons, and how quiet you should be if they are a light sleeper, you both learn how to push each other’s buttons.

Regardless of what anyone says, when you’re mad or hurt, there are times when you go for the jugular. Our partners do this too. The good thing about old love is, when they put the toilet paper roll on the wrong way or ignore the fact that your kid is crying while they’re watching television and you’re trying to make dinner, you know all the ways to pay them back. If you’re going to get revenge, it’s better when you can do it efficiently.

This is harder to accomplish in the courtship stages because you simply don’t know them well enough to tell what will be sufficient payback. Believe me, I’ve tried.

4. You can fart and poop whenever you want.

There’s no inner-strength like that of a woman who is holding in a fart during the fourth date while she’s receiving oral after a romantic dinner and her Spanx were too tight. And your bowels moving the next morning after the first sleepover is inevitable. It’s no fun leaving at the crack of dawn and coming up with an excuse as to why you need to get home, or saying you need a certain kind of aspirin your lover doesn’t have so you can get to the local gas station to lay a brown trout.

Old love allows for things like taking dumps and the freedom to say “Don’t go in there for a while, honey” or “Hey, do you have a plunger? That chili-cheese dog from last night tore me up” or “Hey, why don’t you use the shit spray next time?”

I’ve been with my lover for several months now. I’m thinking soon I can stop saying I have something stuck in my teeth as an excuse to run upstairs “to get some floss” when in reality I’m burying my butt cheeks in a pillow behind a closet door and playing the ass trumpet.

5. You have your secrets, your knowing looks, and your inside jokes.

Old love means your partner knows “the look” when you want to leave a party. You can shoot it across the room in 2.2 seconds. It gets better when they recognize your “I need to get the fuck out of here this second” look and they know your level of seriousness.

You have a history so there are inside jokes only the two of you understand. And you told him about the time you shit your pants in the laundromat so whenever someone talks about laundry, you exchange a smile and no one else knows what it means.

6. The jitters have left the building.

You no longer worry if they won’t love you after they get to know you better and see how you stretch our your jeans on the dining room chairs after washing. Or how nervous you get when you have to drive at night in an unknown place. Or how you have a love for watching pimple-popping videos.

Because old love means they know you really well. And they are still there.

7. The sex.

Sex gets better, not to mention faster, the longer you’ve been together. You know how to make each other orgasm and there’s no hard feelings if you fall asleep immediately, without cuddling. There’s no frilly performance or the need to last long or fake an orgasm.

You don’t care if you have hairy legs or how sexy your undies are. You can say “Honey, just hit the spot, okay?” or “I really shouldn’t have sex tonight after that spicy food,” and no one is offended. In the beginning of a relationship, you hump like bunnies, worry about technique, and make sure your vagina is groomed to the nines. It’s fun the first few weeks, but then it gets tiring.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying new love and all it has to offer as best I can. But, I have to say, if you are someone who looks at your partner and thinks things are stale, you are too comfortable or bored, and you’re missing that spark, take it from someone who has experienced both pretty recently: Nothing can compare to old love. Don’t take that shit for granted.